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Metro will make some immediate changes in response to last week's tragedy, when an arcing rail filled a tunnel with smoke, resulting in the death of a woman and the hospitalization of dozens of people. News4's Adam Tuss reports. (Published Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015)

Metro will make some immediate changes in response to last week's tragedy, when an arcing rail filled a tunnel with smoke, resulting in the death of a woman and the hospitalization of dozens of people.

At Thursday's board meeting, Metro will look to change protocol for when a train operator can turn off their ventilation system, Transportation Reporter Adam Tuss has learned.

The National Transportation Safety Board found anomalies when it conducted a test of the system to ventilate the tunnel that didn't match what happened at L'Enfant Plaza during the Jan. 12 incident.

Members of the National Capital Delegation, Congress members who represent Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs, met with leaders from the NTSB and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Wednesday about the investigation into the tragedy.

NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher Hart noted there were anomalies with the fans that were supposed to ventilate the tunnel during the Jan. 12 incident, and the ventilation system did not operate as expected. Hart did not have details about the anomalies nor about whether the fans on the train in the tunnel worked properly.

The interoperability of first responders and Metro also was discussed. Communication failures were a key factor in the delay rescuing passengers, read a release from Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.).

The cause of the arc that sent the smoke through the tunnel and train remains under investigation. The NTSB hopes to complete its investigation within a year.

The incident began shortly after 3 p.m. Jan. 12, when an electrical breaker tripped at one end of a section of the third rail near the L'Enfant Plaza station. One train stopped in the tunnel and another at the platform, and the tunnel and the trains filled with smoke. Riders from the train in the tunnel have said they were trapped for at least 30 minutes before they were rescued.

Carol Inman Glover, 61, slumped to the floor unconscious near the front of the train, where the smoke was heaviest. Three other passengers tried for 20 minutes to revive her with chest compression and mouth-to-mouth. First-responders then carried Glover out of the tunnel and began CPR. She was taken to a hospital but died the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Glover's death accidental by acute respiratory failure from smoke exposure.